Microsoft today has begun rolling out the Tabbed version of Notepad to Windows 11 Dev Channel Insiders. The feature had been inadvertently leaked by a company employee back in December. In a new blog post announcing the new feature, the company has explained in detail how the new tabbed Notepad will work:
Hello Windows Insiders, today we are beginning to roll out an update to Notepad (version 11.2212.33.0) for Windows 11 to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel that introduces tabs.
With this update, we are introducing support for multiple tabs—a top requested feature from the community—where you will be able to create, manage, and organize multiple files in a single Notepad window! You can also continue to work with files across multiple windows by dragging a tab out into its own window, and a new app setting lets you customize whether files open in new tabs or a new window by default.
There will also be new keyboard shortcut keys to support managing tabs, among others:
There are also new keyboard shortcut keys to support managing tabs as well as some improvements to managing unsaved files, like automatically generating the file name/tab title based on content and a refreshed unsaved changes indicator.
As with any new feature, the new Notepad feature also has a few bugs or issues. Microsoft notes:
We are aware of a couple of issues that may impact your experience with this preview. Some users might encounter issues with certain keyboard shortcuts, and we will also continue to optimize performance to ensure Notepad continues to meet our high standards of performance, reliability, and compatibility.
You can find the official announcement blog post here. Beta Channel users have also got new builds under KB5022363 today.